Just south of Front Street on Church in the heart of the St. Lawrence Market sits Great Burger Kitchen. GBK makes all of their burgers with naturally raised beef grown in Ontario and are served on Organic buns from Brick Street Bakery. Toronto’s burger world is most certainly reaching its saturation point and GBK certainly gives us something to get excited about!

I invited my good friend Jonathan to meet me for dinner. He had spent the entire day doing yoga so the idea of visiting a burger joint with me immediately produced a lackluster response. He was happily surprised at GBK’s veggie, health conscious options. He ordered a Quinoa and Blackbean Veggie burger with sauteed mushrooms, commenting that it was the best veggie burger he had ever eaten. Vegetarians often get duped at burger joints with uninspiring dried out hockey pucks. GBK’s Quinoa and Blackbean burger is soft, moist and as delicious as it is unusual.

I enjoyed a 6 oz beef patty with pickles, lettuce, GBK sauce, honey mustard and red onions. The burger was a monster but I was able to finish it off whilst sharing a Montreal Poutine (fries, cheese curds and gravy) and onion rings.

The three chef’s who started the restaurant explain why they opened GBK on their website:

One day we were having that “if you were stranded on a desert island” conversation; you know the one – if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one meal, every day, for the rest of your life, what would it be? Well, turns out to be burgers and fries all round. Yes, we also discussed how unlimited toppings and variations wouldn’t be accessible on a desert island, but in the end, we decided to heck with the logistical problems! We felt hypothetical scenarios are not weighed down by logistics (plus we were hungry). Anyway, we asked ourselves, if we all ended up on the desert island together, with burgers and fries and unlimited toppings for each, exactly what kind of burger and what type of fries would we want? Obviously we wanted the best – healthy; fresh; yummy like the kind we’d make at home if we had all the time in the world and all the ingredients to make it great.

That’s the story of how great burger kitchen came to be. We’re here so you don’t have to go to a hypothetical desert island to get your great burger.